Alternative workforce bolsters ‘big ticket’ transactions in China

A global firm has launched China’s first alternative legal services hub, which is expected to enhance processing capabilities for routine business in the region.

Melissa Coade • 05 September 2016 • NewLaw

Alternative workforce bolsters ‘big ticket’ transactions in China

Herbert Smith Freehills has announced the expansion of its alternative legal service offering, with a new team installed in the Shanghai office of the global firm.

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Speaking to Lawyers Weekly, HSF managing partner for greater China, Julian Copeman, said work involving “big chunks of information” written in Mandarin, such as work associated with arbitration, litigation and disputes, would especially benefit from the new team’s skills.

“We’ve been keen for some time to have Chinese language document review capacity here.

“To date we’ve either been having to resource that up temporarily for particular matters or put things out to third parties. For me, that was the driver in terms of having that capacity,” Mr Copeman said.

“There are a range of fairly regular, big ticket things that happen in China that the team will be very useful for,” he said.

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A group of 13 PRC-qualified lawyers and legal analysts have been recruited to work in HSF’s latest alternative services hub. The group of Chinese lawyers will undertake intensive processing and high-volume document review as part of a business-wide push to offer efficient, low-cost turnaround.

The legal team will work with the global network of HSF lawyers, particularly those based in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Mr Copeland said client appetite was increasingly calling on the kind of bilingual skills that were missing in the firm’s other global hubs.

“There would be the odd person in Belfast or Perth who would be able to read Mandarin, but generally not. So that was a big driver,” Mr Copeland said.

He suggested matters tied up with discovery obligations would benefit from the end-to-end internal document review and process service offering, pointing to the associated due diligence for IPOs to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as one example.

Sinead Burke, HSF director of alternative legal services for Asia and Australia, said establishing a local team to cater for the language and time needs of the Asian market made sense for the growth of HSF’s alternative services arm.

“We’re responding more to global clients and to global work. So whether it’s disputes or transactions, language skills are becoming increasingly important, and obviously for this region Chinese is important,” Ms Burke said.

“We’re also seeing more and more Chinese language documents coming through. So there’s a need across the network and the Australian region for more and more of that,” she said.

HSF was one of the first international firms to enter the 'in-house legal outsourcing' foray in 2011, when it opened a legal support centre in Belfast. Today more than 300 lawyers work for the firm’s alternative legal services arm.

Speaking of the new recruits in Shanghai, global co-CEO Sonya Leydecker said the team would help provide “innovative and cost-effective service delivery options for clients”.

JK Thursday, 08 September 2016

This whole 'China is the future' rubbish gets tiresome. This country needs to start tying it's economic prosperity on other nations that aren't so risky.

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giant squid Tuesday, 06 September 2016

i would only use lawyers with chinese language skills on china related deals or deals involving chinese investment. more to it than "translation". china legal system can work well if your legal counsel is savvy, has language skills and 15-20 years experience of doing china deals. problem is too many johnny come latelys having a crack at china deals. china has second biggest economy and their legal system works well enough. if you want perfect legal system, jump on the plane and go home. clients need to get a bit more savvy about how they select lawyers for china deals

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chris kwan Tuesday, 06 September 2016

I know lawyers from "MC" who billed $500/hr. The real issue is that foreign firms want to use their own lawyers and their own jurisdiction although that may change in the future. The local chinese wants to use Chinese and in fact documents are now appearing in both chinese and english but still uses english if there is a conflict. Yes by all means use local chinese law firms which also charge just as much too. To me the biggest issue is jurisdiction and until the chinese have 200 years of body of law behind them, is not going to be an easy transition. Secondly there are Chinese laws that are not norm with the West. For example, in China, if you sign an MOU, it pretty much means you have will be sued should you not carry out the intentions in the MOU but not in the West..

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Bob Tuesday, 06 September 2016

You would still need a Chinese WP to do all of the grunt / admin work. The lawyer isn't going to bill $500 an hour doing translation work.

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giant squid Monday, 05 September 2016

shouldnt the clients just go to lawyers who read chinese? 

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